Tag: 3 out of 4

When I heard that American Crime Story was announced, I assumed I would just ignore it. It seemed like it just wanted to sound similar to American Horror Story and who cares after that. Well, I am glad I watched Season 1, The People vs O.J. Simpson, because it was phenomenial television, I learned a lot, and I am happy to see it won so many awards.

And my watching of ACS was just one of the reasons I was trying to ignore O.J.: Made In America. One, why would I watch a documentary series that I just saw play out with actors? It would feel repetitive. Two, I haven’t watched really any of the 30 for 30 movies, let alone a special that lasted almost 8 hours. Three, I have too many movies to watch, and a few shows, so this would take the place of almost four films. Gah!

And then I found out that despite it being in my eyes a TV series, it fits all the criteria for Oscars documentary. It premiered at Sundance (all of it!), it was in theaters in NY and LA (all of it!), and fuck, it will probably be nominated, so I probably just need to bite the damn bullet, and watch this documentary. Of course I decided to do it over five days, allowing myself to just do one at a time, but it was still a major time commitment, and as you can see, I still didn’t even give it a 4 out of 4!

Can’t win ’em all OJ.

With a documentary I still cannot say a whole lot. With this “series” we get to see more than ACS gave us, which was just from murder to end of a trial. A whole hour and a half were focused on O.J. Simpson during his college and NFL career. WHY he became a big name. The next 90 minutes focused on his post NFL career, into acting, commercials, and being a celebrity, along with meeting his wife Nicole and the abuse in their relationship.

Parts 3 and 4 deal mostly with the trial, the death, the lead up, the bigger events, and the final part deals with the results, the after math, another civil law suit, and the events that actually eventually put OJ in jail.

A wild and long ride if anything, and hell, I did learn a lot. The first two parts became the most important for me, given what I knew about the trials from pop culture and current events. The whole thing was mostly laid against racism in LA at the time, to show how the communities reacted and felt about the police at the time and WHY he was acquitted in the end. Hell, we got testimony from a few of the jury members too, a nice behind the scenes look.

But the last fifth took a huge toll on my patience. It seemed to drag. And yeah, I didn’t know that he was in jail now or why he was arrested, but the build up to that moment took so long and felt so damn confusing. I had very little idea what was actually happening, as it was being told from so many different point of views.

This is an extremely in depth (obviously) and important documentary, and can teach you a lot about the world dealing with just one case. But maybe it was too long. Maybe it wasn’t even long enough, and that would explain my confusion at the end. Regardless, it is worth the time for those who want to put the time in. And getting to see comments from Marcia Clark was also a fantastic add on.

Feeling weird? Then you haven’t felt enough, yet.

I have been waiting probably at least five years for a Doctor Strange movie to grace our screens, holding onto every casting rumor. I was straight up distraught when it was pseudo announced that Joaquin Phoenix would play as the titular hero before casting fell through. I knew that he wasn’t the kind of guy to sign multi year deals and wouldn’t want to fully embrace being a super hero.

Which also explains why I was so excited when Cumberbatch was signed on. Given his role as Sherlock and what I have seen it just made since based on what I had seen of the character in other forms of media. Being a complete Cumberbunny helped of course as well, I’d watch him in basically anything.

Note, despite waiting for this film for years, I am not some weird expert on Doctor Strange. I first saw him in the 90’s Spiderman cartoon and just instantly thought he was pretty cool. Then I keep abreast on him every once in a while to see what kind of shenanigans he is up to and that is about it. That’s right, zero comics read with him as the lead.

This falcon punch gets you right in the feels.

Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is about the world famous egotist and neurosurgeon, Stephan Strange. He is arrogant, cocky, and other words that mean those same things. But he is also extremely intelligent. One of those guys with photographic memory and all of that, so the cockiness comes with the territory. Well, these character flaws lead him to an accident, where his body is broken and his hands are practically shattered. Fuck!

Not being able to really bend your knuckles and stop your hands from shaking makes it hard to be a surgeon and his life begins to deteriorate. After chasing cure after cure, he finally submits based on a rumor of a past patient and heads to Nepal to find a mystical healing place called Kamar-Taj. There he meets The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), the Sorcerer Surpreme who eventually is willing to teach Strange the Dark Arts. He only wants to heal his hands, they want him to protect the world from other universes.

He also meets her second in command, Baron Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), and the master of the library Wong (Benedict Wong). Needless to say, his intelligence gets him far, but his attitude gets him into some tough situations, including dealings with Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), a former trainee who wants to take out the Ancient One and release the world into utter darkness. You know, the usual.

We also have Rachel McAdams as an ER doctor / sometimes love interest, Michael Stuhlbarg as a surgeon to be the butt of Strange’s jokes, Scott Adkins as generic bad guy fighter, and Benjamin Bratt playing basketball to remind us all of Catwoman.

Oh an the Cape is played by Andy Serkis.

Rarely do I make this recommendation, but with a movie like Doctor Strange it practically begs you to watch it on the biggest screen you can with those incredibly annoying 3D Glasses. It is just so goddamn pretty and there is so many details going on, it would be a shame for your eyes to have them all squished together and miss them. And yes, that means don’t download this in the future and watch it on your shitty laptop, damn it.

In terms of actual movie plots, this is a fun and interesting super hero movie. We are in a new direction! We finally have magic, something the MCU has been adamant in avoiding as much as possible (especially given the direction they took Iron Man 3).

Strange is certifiable jerk, asshole, and badass all in one. When I first heard their intention was for him to replace Iron Man as the face of the Avengers after Phase 3, I could only barely believe it, but after seeing the film it makes a lot of sense. I can’t imagine Downey Jr. surviving Thanos, let us just say that.

Wong was a fun addition, Ejiofor and Mikkelson’s characters could have been more fully fledged out, and Swinton was a unique choice as a Celtic Ancient One. Of course, we also have McAdams in here as a love interest, making this the FOURTH movie in her career where she is the love interest of someone who has time altering abilities. What a god damn oddly specific type cast. The other three are The Time Traveler’s Wife, Midnight in Paris, and About Time.

Doctor Strange is visually stunning, funny, and complete with amazing battle scenes and a decent ending. I will also note I almost flipped out over the mid credits scene in surprise. It isn’t the best super hero movie, but it is a damn good start and I can’t wait to see the character in future films.

Oh and a warning. It does feature the cringey line of “Forget everything you think you know,” a line that is literally never spoken by a real person ever.

The Birth Of A Nation is titled as such to recall the film with the same name slightly over a hundred years ago. That one was racist, sure, but it was also one of the biggest movies of the time and revolutionized film so it still has a reason to be talked about today.

This modern version is about a true slave revolt that happened before the civil war. That’s right. They are taking the title back and making it pro-black. A bold and almost genius idea.

It was also one of the most anticipated films of the year, with Oscar hopes and dreams, long ovations at Sundance, and a giant bidding war to get rights to distribute. It was the first film to potentially win the Best Picture award this year, so the hype was un real. And no, Free State of Jones being terrible didn’t bring the hype down at all.

Picture of how I imagined the hype train would rush to theaters for this film.

The story is about Nat Turner (Nate Parker), a child born into slavery, who was taught to read the bible a bit by kinder owners (Penelope Ann Miller), but eventually was put back into the field.

As an adult, he was one of the head slave workers and he also preached to his fellow slaves every week. A slave preacher! Yes, because they wouldn’t let him preach to white folks of course. Well, the drought was hurting the small farm, so his owner (Armie Hammer) began to take him to other farms to have him preach to other slaves about the importance of obeying your master in order to get to heaven, helping them earn extra money.

But on these voyages he started to see worse and worse conditions for slaves. It began to break him as a person, so much that he would lash out and get more punishments on his own farm. So eventually he had enough. He got a few men together, they planned to kill all their masters, go north to an armory, grab weapons, take the town and try and end slavery once and for all. Whoops, that is most of the story!

Also starring Jackie Earle Haley as the typical evil slave catcher, Esther Scott, Aja Naomi King, Mark Boone Junior, Colman Domingo, Aunjanue Ellis, Dwight Henry, Gabrielle Union, and Roger Guenveur Smith.

Obviously, given the subject matter you can tell this will be a powerful drama and story and one has to just hope and hope that the people behind it do it justice. And since one man is behind it there is a lot of pressure on Parker to deliver. He was the director, star, writer, main producer, everything. And thankfully he also delivered.

From the cinematography, to his acting, to the costumes, to the close up faces, it was an easy and hard two hours to get through. Easy as it just seemed to flow by rarely having a dull moment, and hard given the subject matter. For those worried, it was actually a lot less graphic than I had anticipated, with a terrible scene involving teeth and some dead bodies.

Whether the movie gets the real story perfect, or what happened in anyone’s real life past is irrelevant. The film itself is actually a well-crafted piece and worthy of praise on many regards. Is it the best movie this year? I don’t think so, but it is one with few issues outside of pacing concerns and behind the scenes drama.

I don’t want to sound like a cheap comparison, but I would definitely say another recent slavery movie, 12 Years A Slave, was definitely still better. But I mean, 12 Years was reall fucking good.

Definitely go see The Birth of a Nation which you will certainty see it mentioned at awards ceremonies in a few months, but I doubt now it takes the top prize.

Honestly, Queen of Katwe came out kind of a surprise to me, which is mostly surprising as it is a Disney movie.

I mean, shit, the bombed film The Finest Hours which Disney barely cared to promote I was still able to see advertisements for. But queen of Katwe? I just assumed it was some random actual Queen of an African nation. I mean, I recognized actors on the poster and it seemed like it could be about royalty.

But no, this is one of those Disney true inspirational stories. And I completely missed the fact that the poster had a ton of chess pieces on it as silhouettes, just assuming it was a fence. Fuck. A Disney movie about Chess and Africa? What a brilliant idea to really bring two things not really thought about together to make a unique film.

Well, unique if it wasn’t a true story. Now I am babbling. Yay chess?

Yeah, there is some chess right there!

In Uganda, a large portion of the population does not play chess. In Katwe specifically, it is a mostly village town with a lot of people living in the slums, struggling to survive. Phiona Mutesi (Madina Nalwanga) is a young girl living in these slums! She doesn’t go to school as they cannot afford it. Instead she helps sell corn all day to people in cars so they can afford rent. She lives with her mother (Lupita Nyong’o), older sister Night (Taryn Kyaze), younger brother (Martin Kabanza), and a baby brother too. No dad anymore, he died a few years ago, thus the struggle to survive.

But there is some hope. There is a church group nearby that is helping keep the kids in good health and spirits, teaching them soccer mostly. But one man, a very smart man, Robert Katende (David Oyelowo) wants them to learn chess. A game that he learned as a kid to beat those “city folk” and really stick it to them. Phiona follows her brother to a meeting spot for this, instantly falls in love with the game and begins to play as well.

And she is super interested in chess. She makes a makeshift chess board out of bottle caps with her brother so they can play at home. And soon, SOON, she is the best player in Katwe of the kids who can’t afford school.

But that isn’t her end goal. No, she needs to go to bigger tournaments. In Uganda, in Africa, hell, in other continents around the world. Her drive and desire is pushing her forward and it might what can really save her family from poverty in their small village.

Also featuring Ronald Ssemaganda and Esther Tebandeke.

You might have your mothers features but you lack her sense of style.

For a movie that lacked a lot of advertisement, it sure does tell a good story.

This isn’t the greatest film by any means. It is average on the acting front, pretty normal camera work and scenes to keep you entertained. It won’t win any awards. But when it comes to telling an interesting and inspirational tale, it does a wonderful job.

Our big three leads do a good job of carrying the emotional/spiritual side of the story, Nyong’o, Oyelowo, and Nalwanga. You will like all the characters, through their faults and triumphs. We even get to see cute baby scenes, yay cute baby scenes! (And one scary one that almost freaked me the fuck out).

For her first ever film (and she had only seen one movie before in her life while filming this one, Jurassic World) Nalwanga plays her part with ease. Despite the bigger names, it is very clearly her film and a story about this chess prodigy and not the coach who found the diamond in the rough or anything like that.

And on that note, there aren’t a lot of movies really about chess. Sure we had Pawn Sacrifice a year or two ago, but that was about the most famous chess player of all time and nothing to special. Maybe it appealed to me more given that I am becoming a chess club coach in a week and excited at the timing of this film. It is a nice film about picking hard to reach goals and doing whatever it takes to achieve them.

Did you read my review of Detropia? No? Of course not. And don’t worry, it wasn’t the best review.

Because when I wrote that review, my heart wasn’t into it. Into the film or the writing. It just was there. I watched it a month ago, saddened, because I was hoping to see a new documentary that caught my eye instead. Audrie & Daisy. Just something I found by googling new documentaries on Netflix, except I was a month early. Argh, but the topic was interesting to me!

What is the topic? Well, sexual assault of course!

Oh, erm. Technically not the topic to get very excited for, but given certain documentaries recently like The Hunting Ground and The Invisible War, they tend to hit hard and be really well made.

Audrie & Daisy is a documentary trying to slow it down a bit. We aren’t going to talk about a dozen different stories, just mainly two stories. Audrie Pott and Daisy Coleman, two girls who were both in high school with unfortunately very different results.

One again, a documentary where I have to basically just use the poster/cover because everything else would be boring.

I won’t tell you the details, but yes, things don’t end well. Like, at all. First of course there is rape involved. Not really a good start to any story. Alcohol was involved, they were both underage and consent could not be given in their conditions, but people took advantage of them.

They also decided to not just hide their case either. They went public about it, to the cops, and their lives were practically ruined because of it. Online harassment, friends harassment, people calling them names in school because the boys involved were athletes. The police not believing them, working slowly, or not giving correct results maybe because a boy is related to a politician. You know, the usual terrible stuff.

And guess what? This documentary will make you feel bad and make you feel angry. Angry at a whole lot of people, but also angry that women everywhere have to put up with this sort of stuff if they want to bring up transgressions against them.

Again, keeping it vague so you can find out the whole story, but it is worth a watch and the details will piss you off. Even when people serve time, it isn’t enough and too late.

My only issue with the documentary as a whole is that by making it about two people, yes we got very good details on their case and yes we got how they were “related,” but it feels like it is just missing more. More statistics, more talk with people who are experts, just something. I need more than people just talking about terrible events and offering temporary solutions to make it a truly great documentary.

But it is worthy of a watch, and being straight on Netflix, everyone will have an opportunity to see it before awards season.

It has been well noted that for every movie, there is an at least equal if not better movie out there that would exist if Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was included in that film. Just look at any franchise that didn’t have The Rock in it, then added The Rock to it. It is pure, unadulterated science, like Mathematics.

At the same time, films that add Kevin Hart as a co-lead tend to suffer. Sure, maybe they make some money, but basically everything that has Hart at co-lead has been mediocre at best, and generally terrible. The only films that excel with Hart are those that limit the Hart to a supporting actor role.

So this begs the question. What about a movie that has both Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart in it, as co-leads? Which side will win out? Can Johnson elevate it to greatness, or will Hart drag it down to mediocrity?

Central Intelligence was made just to answer that one question.

Just imagine averaging the two and seeing whose size is more extreme.

Back in 1996, The Golden Jet, Calvin Joyner (Kevin Hart) was king. Homecoming King and the coolest kid ever, and a nice guy. During a final pep rally, some bullies threw a fat kid, Richard (Dwayne Johnson), naked into the gym and everyone laughed at him. But Calvin gave him his coat to cover him, Richard ran away and was never seen again.

Now, twenty years later, Calvin didn’t go and do anything sexy. He is an accountant (a good accountant), but not one that leads his own company or anything. He is still with his wife, Maggie (Danielle Nicolet), but they never had kids. And tomorrow night is his 20 year high school reunion. He is just not feeling it though.

Then he gets a Facebook friend request from someone named Bob Stone. Turns out it is Richard, from high school, and he wants to hang out! Sure! But now Bob is ripped as fuck. Quirky and weird, sure, but he got fit and he got tall.

But it also turns out he is in the CIA. Or used to be. He might have killed a man. He might be framed, he might be crazy. Either way, Calvin is now involved with Bob, and they are on the run, finding clues, and dealing with international finances. All before the reunion!

Also starring Jason Bateman as old bully Trevor, Amy Ryan and Aaron Paul as CIA people, Ryan Hansen as office coworker asshole, and Thomas Kretschmann as potential terrorist.

A moment of silence for the CGI crew who lost their lives to create this fat Rock.

And who won in the Rock Hart showdown? Well, apparently a positive beats a negative and I laughed an unreasonable amount of time in this film. That Johnson is just so damn entertaining. And since he played against his normal tropes, it was better than normal. Yes, it was technically the same joke over and over again. Big strong guy, but nerdy and super optimistic and putting Hart on this pedestal. But he went to the extreme and kept it and it totally worked.

And as a comparison, it reminds me of Terry Crews‘ character on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but only in the strange strong man role.

Hart wasn’t terrible either, because despite being the main character, he still felt limited. His character was just along for the ride (not like Ride Along), so he was a very supporting lead character.

The plot? Not the best, but it wasn’t terrible. I was incorrect with my guess on the twists technically, so it got me there.

This isn’t a movie you watch for that. You watch it for laughs, decent action, and because everyone has a crush on that big manly Rock like man.

Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, and Sarah, Plain and Tall are all books that were about women living in farming communities, simple lives, and totally kid friendly.

Sunset Song is not one of those things. It is about a girl, sure, a farm, yeah, but it isn’t American and it isn’t a nice and easy kid friendly book. It was a realistic novel and it is considered one of the greatest Scottish novels of the 20th century. Source: Wikipedia.

It is the type of thing that one would have imagined as a film thirty years ago but hey, better late than never.

Life doesn’t give a shit about your strength, there is still work to be done.

Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn) is almost a woman and living with her family. Her brother Will (Jack Greenlees) often comes to blows with their father (Peter Mullan), and by that, Will gets whipped still. They also have two younger siblings. Oh wait on that as well, despite her age, the mom (Daniela Nardini) is now pregnant again, with twins!

Now the family has to go and move to a bigger house and plantation. And with more space comes more problems. Depression and loneliness are a big part of it, and after a few events, it is just Chris, Will, and her father. And times are hard, money is scarce, people are jobless.

If I kept talking about the plot, I would describe more worse and worse situations. Including the start of World War I, yay!

So let’s just cut the chase, say life is hard, and introduce some more actors. Like Stuart Bowman, Douglas Rankine, and Kevin Guthrie.

Don’t be mad, just fill in the blanks and you can probably imagine all the bad stuff.

Sunset Song had a lot going for it. Apparently a great source material, a good an authentic feeling cast, gorgeous land and shots, and very uncomfortable moments. Because no one wants to see life on the farm if it is ordinary and boring. We need that bad stuff to happen to our cast in order to see some struggles and see heroes grow before our eyes.

Deyn knocks it out of the park in the leading role. She grows from an obedient oldest daughter to someone capable of running everything on her own. She is just a woman trying to suffer in a man’s world. And it is a terrible story to watch, which is why I love it so. I never got fully cry emotional, but I was still right there on her journey with her.

It is a long movie with a lot of scenes. It reinforced some aspects of World War I that I had recently learned, making it feel even more awesome. The soundtrack was also a delight, featuring some nice Scottish songs.

But what I didn’t like? The ending. It felt rushed (in a 140 minute film), and it ended on such a weird note. I have come to learn that the book is the first of a trilogy and in book form it might make sense, but as a film it just feels blah. “Is that it?” I asked my computer screen. I had felt like our main girl was suddenly no longer acting like herself. And it didn’t give any nice conclusion or anything.

So if there are more movies in the future? Fantastic, I would watch them. But I hate it when a movie doesn’t want to tell a whole complete story.

Werner Herzog is kind of a big deal.

If you aren’t familiar with his name, you have probably heard of some of his work. He directed Grizzly Man, Into The Abyss, and Cave of Forgotten Dreams, among many many many documentaries. He has been around for awhile and puts out some high quality work.

So I was ecstatic to be given a screening of his latest documentary. And half of my excitement came from the name itself. Lo And Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. Shit that is powerful. I don’t even know what it is about but I was right there with him.

It turns out this is Herzog’s attempt to tackle this crazy newfangled thing called “The Internet” and no, not the inner netting used to line swim trunks for a comforting snugness. No, the regular Internet we all use and love to read reviews on this website.

Of course he starts quickly with how the internet came about and thus, how our movie title came about. Apparently the first message sent from a computer to another computer was in fact, Lo and Behold, a great message for what they knew at the time meant something great.

But history schmistory, where are we at now?

Monks on twitter, yeah, that makes sense.

And without going into extreme detail, we then get to look at people who have revolutionized the simplicity of the internet and gone on to do great things. The people who are attempting to do better things. The people who are changing the world every day.

But also the negative aspects of the internet, sort of how fast a photo can spread, but not the lame way kids try to do it. In regards to graphic dead photos, because dead people have no rights (yay America!)!

And honestly, this is not the type of documentary one can really talk that much about. They are just stories about the extremes and future of the internet. Honestly, based on the description, I thought this documentary would be something completely different. I thought it would involve how small village communities in Asia and Africa had become connected, and how the internet is changing everything.

It covers some of that, but not in as much sexy detail as I would have liked. And sure, some of these people and stories I have already heard, as a denizen of the internet myself. And eventually I might have paid a bit less attention, but only for a bit, as they jump around enough to new topics to keep my interest.

This is a pretty good documentary and highlights a lot of aspects of the internet that people probably don’t know. Is it as good as his other works? No, of course not. But it is still high quality and worthy of at least one viewing.

When I heard about the movie Southside With You, my first reaction was to laugh. The plot, about Barack and Michelle Obama first’s date just sounded so oddly specific.

But at the same time, technically, I didn’t know anything about them when they were younger. Did they have lofty political ambitions? Were they jerks? Why did their first date make them fall in love? Was their first date actually a good story.

Shit, the hook actually worked. I wanted to find out more. And I also based it off the assumption that there is no way they would make a movie like this unless it was an interesting first date. Sure, some liberties would be taken, but the real life story has to be a good one. My first date with my wife would be terrible as a movie, but maybe the second or third date would be better.

I also find it funny that, outside of documentaries, this is the first movie about Obama’s life. Our last president was stuck with the unflattering W. as his legacy, but Obama gets a romance flick. Better PR team I guess!

Also, I was secretly hoping that this would basically be like Before Sunrise, but more Obama-y.

Technically, this film takes place before sunrise. Technically every film does.

The year is 1989, the season is summer, and the city is Chicago. To put that into more perspective, I would have been a few months old only at the time, because I am still a young little whippersnapper.

Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter) is a second year associate at a law firm. She went to Ivy League schools for her degrees and has succeeded in a white and male dominated field. And yes, she still lives with her parents, because her father has MS. She doesn’t really date, but today…well, that is still true.

Because today she is going to a meeting with Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers). He is a summer intern at the same law firm, while going to Harvard for his own law degree. He invited her out to a meeting about local community problems that he figured she would be interested in. And that is all it is, according to Michelle. Certainly not a date, that would be inappropriate, she is his adviser.

But it turns out that when he picks her up in his beaten down car early in the morning, the meeting isn’t actually until 4. What a ruse! He wants to take her to a museum first to see an Afrocentric art exhibit. And some food in the park. But if she doesn’t want it to be a date, then hell, they can just be friends. Just talking, getting to know each other, friends.

You sly little so-and-so Barack.

It takes a lot of acting balls to want to play someone real, let alone real and super famous. The President and First Lady are really high up there in terms of famousness and some pretty big shoes to fill. And with that, I want to say that Sumpter as Michelle reminded me constantly of Suzanne Cryer‘s character on Silicon Valley. Just the way she talked and where she placed pauses, that is all I could think about. I also can say that I have absolutely no idea what the hell Michelle Obama talks like now or did back then. I assume it is an accurate portrayal, but it was definitely jarring throughout the whole film.

On the same side, I know what Barack Obama sounds like. I have heard many of his speeches. The mannerisms that Sawyers gave clicked really well with my view of the president and it was awesome to see. By the end, I accepted Sumpter’s Michelle as well and figured they were both spot on. Because damn it, why else would she use that voice?

Enough about the voices, Sumpter and Sawyers also remarkably had enough of the look down to make this film very believable. It was just about two young, highly educated and motivated people, trying to make the best out of their lives and help others along the way. It is a great propaganda piece, very in your face to some of the more vocal arguments about Obama. They talked about his family, his birth, his religion and more.

Sure, it wasn’t Before Sunrise, but very few films are. Instead, Southside With You is a nice romance flick. It feels real, it is full of wonderful smaller moments that build up into something bigger than the sum of its parts. The leads are charming. And it will really humanize two individuals that are somewhat hard to relate to.

For those avid readers of Gorgon Reviews, you might think this documentary sounds familiar. Well, first of all, thank you to the three of you. Second of all, you are thinking about Schooled: The Price of College Sports, which was about the exploitation of college athletes for profit.

This is The Business of Amateurs, which is about the exploitation of college athletes for profit and other reasons!

Now obviously this is a subject I am already immensely passionate about it. I have gotten into arguments about it in real life. I have even read a book on the subject, which is a big commitment for me. There is no good reason for people to be brought to colleges, controlled 100% of their time, make the college millions, while not earning a livable wage, getting educated, or being able to have other jobs or use their success for their gain.

And yeah, The Business of Amateurs is another documentary about the subject. But like I said, it is different. It is more than just the moral reasons why people shouldn’t be exploited that way. They go into some science. And the documentary is written, directed, and narrated by Bob DeMars, a former college football player, so it is also a bit more personal.

Looking closely at the cover, I found myself a little bit moved.

Remember the movie Concussion? The film that was supposed to shake the NFL and bring the truth, but was extremely watered down, if not well acted? Well, this documentary goes a lot into health as well.

We have players who are not making money, who have to practice daily for hours, play in games, hitting their head over and over again. The majority of them are not going to the NFL, will not be making big bucks, and they are potentially setting themselves up for brain damage, depression, and a young death.

Couple that with scholarships that can be taken away if you are injured, and you got a system that cares not at all for the athletes that show up. They drop you as soon as you are hurt, and won’t help you when you have bigger problems in the future for work you did for them.

But I don’t want to get too specific into all of the details.

This documentary has a lot of interesting information and I don’t want to go over all of it. I clearly loved it, but it had some minor issues. It is very clearly an amateur film (about amateurs!), some scenes aren’t well polished, some just scream out indie. This is only important in that other scenes are very well, so the disconnect is felt as it goes back and forth.

Additionally, the documentary doesn’t talk about sports outside of Football and Basketball, the big money earners. We get to hear about how some real life athletes outside of the top two are affected after their education, but they don’t go into how those programs are funded and how they could survive if the players earned some damn income relative to the income they bring in. It was more noticeable thanks to going to the NCAA museum where they showed many sports, but again, didn’t really talk about them.

Either way, this is another documentary, and many more people, explaining why the current system is fucked up, and maybe, eventually, more people will realize it.